


The Flocks of the Wayward

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bank Robbery, Blood and Violence, F/F, Less Pretentious Than It Sounds, M/M, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, POV Third Person, Villain Protagonist, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 20:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: A Modern Crime AU, where Raven Branwen leads a predatory gang of outlaws, and Cinder Fall helms a mafia enterprise. Their paths to power have ensnared more than a few wayward souls, their conflict threatens to sunder a city.These are not nice people. But their love and sorrow is a true as any other's.





	The Flocks of the Wayward

**Author's Note:**

> _Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must._
> 
>   * [Thucydides](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thucydides-Greek-historian), [_The Peloponnesian War_](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0200:book=5:chapter=89:section=1)
> 


* * *

**_2:57:01 PM_ **

Garent stumbled.

They’d hit a speedbump, or perhaps a pothole - in the windowless van he had no real way of telling - causing the armed and armored man to lurch into his nearest co-conspirator. César managed to catch Garent just before two fell to the floor, one steadying hand planted into Garent’s Kevlar chest. Rebalanced, the two men both glanced sheepishly at the woman seated on the floor, hoping that she hadn’t noticed their impromptu slapstick routine.

Raven shook her head.

“If you’re quite done,” she began, voice low, “we’re almost there.”

The two men straightened up, the tension tightening their muscles. César fiddled with his rifle, Garent tugged at the fabric of his balaclava. Both men knew what their leader meant, knew that weeks of preparation were finally coming to a head. They were far past the point of backing out, but even prison-hardened criminals thought twice about storming a well-guarded bank in the heart of the financial district.

Garent coughed, trying to ignore the way Raven idly strummed her katana’s hilt. If she felt any nervousness about the dangers ahead of them, she let no trace of it show on her face. She hardly needed her mask to be sphinxian.

“Do we, uh…” Garent suddenly reddened, Raven’s eyes swiveling to meet his. “We… uh… want to synchronize our watches?” He flashed his own wrist for emphasis, revealing the knock-off Rolex he’d gotten on his last trip upstate. “So we’re, like, in sync?”

Garent held his breath as Raven peered into him, eyebrows narrowing. “That won’t be necessarily,” she finally decided, eyes drifting back to the dirt-caked floor of the van. Her eyelids seemed to flutter for a second, as if she was fighting the urge to nap.

César smacked his arm. “Man, what the fuck?”

 _Yup, Raven’s eyes were_ definitely _closed._

Garent shrugged, drawing into himself. “It’s just, you know, the kind of thing all the savvy robbers do. In, like, the movies.”

The aspiring criminal mastermind beside him rolled his eyes. “Does this _look_ like fucking _Reservoir Dogs_?”

Garent had to admit it did not. Two washed-up thugs, a forty-ish purported sociopath, and a van they’d stolen from a gardening store closed for the winter. _Ocean’s 11_ this was not. “Still though,” he replied, defensively. “I just think we should all be on the same page, time-wise.”

Raven’s hand briefly left her sword, palm flashed upright in a _laissez-faire_ gesture. It wasn’t exactly like she had a watch to be synced or unsynced. Garent took that as benediction to proceed.

“Well if anyone’s wondering,” he said loudly, glancing down at his watch. “It’s exactly three o’clock in _five… four…_ _three_... _two_... _one_ … ** _now_**.”

* * *

**_Now_ **

Raven Branwen, two of her fellow bandits, and a getaway driver are weaving through downtown traffic in a stolen van, three blocks away from Shion National Bank.

**_Now_ **

Vernal is huddled in a lightless service alley, knees tucked close to her chest, snowmelt soaking her jeans. A hoodie is drawn tight over her head. She is slowly freezing to death.

**_Now_ **

Yang Xiao Long and Weiss Schnee are enjoying a rare day off together, spending the afternoon sapphically bedridden in the latter’s downtown condo. The lights are off, the curtains are drawn, and a soft rock playlist provides the soundtrack to their lovemaking.

**_Now_ **

Cinder Fall is in her private gym, inflicting a barrage of punishing blows on a vinyl punching bag. She pauses for a brief respite, glaring at the suspended sack swinging before her. Beating it is unsatisfying, and does little to sate her simmering rage. She calls out for a sparring partner.

**_Now_ **

Roman Torchwick is asleep in bed, his slumbering features bathed in red by a lava lamp on the nightstand. He has just pulled two consecutive all-nighters, and is dead to the world. Down the hallway, still sedate from their lovemaking, Hei “Junior” Xiong is working in his office, reviewing expenditure reports from his Club.

**_Now_ **

Qrow Branwen is enjoying a liquid lunch at one of his familiar haunts. The waitress knows to keep the drinks coming and not to bother with small talk. He pretends to be doing the crossword. He has penciled in two answers so far, both of them wrong.

**_Now_ **

A security guard at Shion National Bank is glancing at the CCTV feed, spotting a transient making themselves comfortable on private property. After losing a round of _rock-paper-scissors_ , he grabs a coat and prepares to kick them out.

* * *

**_3:01:01 PM_ **

“ _Get up_. You can’t loiter here,” said Sully, kicking a booted foot.

The figure stirred, slightly. “I’m sorry…”

The security guard blinked. The voice was feminine, and sounded young, too. His suspicions were confirmed when the woman glanced up at him, her visage barely-visible around her tightly-drawn hood. She slowly pulled herself to her feet, rubbing her hands as she did. Fingerless gloves which did nothing to guard against frostbite.

“How old are you, kid?” the guard asked, unable to keep his eyes and his thoughts from wandering.

“Seventeen, sir,” the woman murmured. “Eighteen in two months.”

She coughed, but to Sully her lungs sounded just fine, not plagued with tuberculosis or cancer. She wasn’t _clean_ but she didn’t smell like shit or vomit - for a vagabond, she was actually pretty pretty.

“Fuck,” Sully replied, unenthusiastically. “Parents kick you out?”

The woman’s eyes swiveled towards him, orbs big and blue. “What’s it to you?”

He grabbed her by the elbow, easily maintaining his grip despite her feeble attempts to shake it. “Look, girl, I know how hard it is to be without a home,” he lied, steering her further down the alley, beyond the gazes of the bank’s security cameras. “I got a place of my own, you know, a bachelor pad uptown.”

“You do?” She didn’t know where he was going with this, he thought, but she certainly sounded _interested_ at his talk of a home.

“Yeah…” He guided her to a small recess between where the bank abutted the neighboring commercial complex. To his relief, it was empty. _That_ was where the smarter transients knew to rest, hidden from the sidewalk and CCTV alike. “How does having a warm bed for the night sound?”

“Are you… serious?” There was suspicion in her voice - the sound of someone burned too many times to trust - but also _so_ much eagerness.

“You bet I am,” he promised her, even as he pushed her - gently but firmly - against the reddish bricks of the wall. “You can stay as long as you like.”

The woman tensed as his hand began rubbing along her thigh, denim pants wet with slushy snow. “Okay…”

“ _But_.” He let the word linger in the air for a moment, giving his hands more time to roam. “You’re going to have to give me something for it.”

She squirmed. “I don’t have anything-”

“-Yeah you do.” His pulse was quickening now, a power fantasy he’d masturbated to so many times suddenly realizing itself before him. He grabbed one of her wrists, easily encircling it, drawing her to the tented peak of his pants. “C’mon, just give me something to keep you around for...”

The woman nodded, almost imperceptibly. She rested on her haunches before him, her hands fiddling with his belt, unbuckling it. The black slacks of the guard’s uniform sagged slightly as she freed his erection, his engorged member clasped gently in gracile fingers.

With a swift _yank_ he pulled the hood off her head, revealing a jagged pixie cut. He groaned slightly and ran his fingers through it.

“I’ve never done… this… before,” the woman whispered in apology, the breath of her words stiffening his dick harder still. “With, y’know… a _guy_.”

He scratched her scalp, chuckling slightly. “ _Fuck_ , that just makes this even hotter.” A trickle of precum seeped from the tip of his member, so tantalizingly close to her lips. Her hand drifted south, cupping his balls…

“ _Random question_ ,” the bum began, her words warming his dick. “You ever go to the mall, and see the cheese shops, and see the guy who cuts through cheese with a wire?”

The security guard blinked. The transient’s tone had gotten a _lot_ less soft all of a sudden. “ _What?_ Yeah. Why?”

He couldn’t see it, but Vernal was smiling. “Let’s just say that - right now - your genitals are a _particularly_ disgusting Limburger. Try not to react.”

The guard didn’t react, if only because he still didn’t exactly understand where she was going with that analogy.

And then he felt something _coiling_ , something thin and sharp cutting into his genitals in a most _decidedly_ non-erotic manner.

“Hands on your head,” Vernal instructed, tightening her grip on the monofilament wire clenched in her fingerless gloves. She’d wound the razor-sharp line around his manhood while he’d still been fantasizing about face-fucking her, and now she was a single sneeze away from eviscerating the _eros_ -engorged organ.

“Your gun’s in its holster,” she reminded him, as he hesitated to comply. “A holster with two security latches to prevent gun-grab. Not to mention the safety’s on.” She flashed her pearly whites. “You make a move for it, you lose your balls. Got it?”

The guard swallowed. He’d gotten a B.A. in Psychology, before he’d discovered that a B.A. in Psychology didn’t count for much in the modern job market. But that meant that he had a passing familiarity with the works of Sigmund Freud and the contours of psychoanalytic theory. Which meant that he was familiar with a certain concept called _Kastrationsangst_. It always came back to the penis with Freud, of course, who had considered _castration anxiety_ to be a near-universal experience. The then-student/future-security guard had never put much credence to the concept, chalking it up to the Austrian’s obsession with all things phallic.

And yet right now - alone in an alley, with the possibility of penile amputation looking more and more probable by the second - he had to admit that it was a uniquely terrifying threat.

His hands rose.

Vernal smiled. “There you go. Now, let me tell you what’s going to happen.” She tightened her wire by degrees. “In a second, I’m going to let you go. But I’m going to keep your gun. Then you’re going to take me, and a couple of my friends, back inside to that nice little bank where you work.”

He swallowed. “And… and you promise you’re not going to cut my dick off?”

She snorted. “When you say it like that, I sound like a psycho ex, don’t I?” she chided, disapprovingly. The guard tensed again as two men in masks rounded the corner. He tried to take a half-step back, reflexively, but Vernal’s wire leash kept him tethered. “ _I promise_.”

The two new arrivals removed his belt, taking with it his pistol, his walkie-talkie, and the plastic key card affixed with an elastic string. Vernal stood up once he was disarmed, but left her coiled contraption behind, like a Freudin _memento mori_.

The walkie-talkie crackled to life as the guard was buckling his pants, every jostle of his genitals stinging. “ _Uh, Sully, Cam 4 is dead on our screens. Can you check it?_ ”

Vernal held the small communicator, bouncing it on her palm. “Tell them it looks fine,” she instructed, handing the device back to Sully. One of Vernal’s men passed her the confiscated pistol, which she tucked carelessly into the waistband of her jeans.

Sully clicked the radio to life. “Uh, I’m looking at it now, and it looks fine,” he said, knowing damn-well that his life depended on the lie.

“ _Huh_ ,” the voice on the other end of the line crackled back. “ _I’ll try rebooting iDVR. Usually works._ ” The line went dead for a few seconds. “ _You kick the hobo out?”_

Vernal gave him his answer with a nod. “Uh, yeah. Some homeless woman. She’s gone now. _”_

“ _Cool. Get up here, game’s starting soon.”_

“Be right there,” Sully confirmed.

Vernal dropped the walkie, its plastic battery cover popping off as it hit concrete. “Good job, Sully,” she acknowledged. Then she glanced over her shoulder at her two conspirators. “Well now,” she said with a smile. “Let’s -

* * *

“-rob a bank.”

As the men hastened to tug down ski masks and slip on gloves, Raven lowered her own mask over her face, leather straps buckled to keep it tight against her head. She’d designed the mask herself - the first one many years ago - labored over with more affection and diligence then she’d ever shown her subordinates. The aesthetic was inhuman by design, speaking to something dark in the depths of the human psyche.

She examined her men through the eye slits. Even desensitized to it though familiarity, none dared to meet her gaze.

The inspiration had come from a children’s book, of all things, a reprinting of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales in the original German. This had been an _old_ book, though, not sanitized to suit the needs of Disney. The pages had contained illustrations from an unknown artist, but whoever they knew, their demons were more terrifying than anything of Doré or Bosch.

They’d even chilled Raven, the first time she’d leafed through those yellowing pages. And so she made them her own.

The van screeched to a halt, the back doors flying open before it’d stopped rolling. César and Garent were first out - young men with delusions of invulnerability - with Raven following suit. She took a moment to survey the intersection, observing its storefronts and alleys and the perches the police snipers would claim.

Nobody else knew yet, but Raven already owned this block. She had men secreted in every café and intersection, ready to relay word of how the authorities would respond. She knew every exit and escape, every angle of approach.

She followed her men into the bank, sword-hand resting easily as she did.

It was time to demonstrate just how exactly might made right.

* * *

Yang rolled over on the bed, staring into the ceiling, arms spread. She was drenched in sweat, her hair a tangled mess, her whole body still pleasurably abuzz in the afterglow of an orgasm. Weiss turned into her, eyes closed, one lithe leg hooking around Yang’s toned thigh.

“ _Whoa_ ,” was all Yang said, doing her best Keanu Reeves impersonation. Then she felt Weiss’ fingers in her hair, combing through tangled strands of gold.

“Don’t think I’m done with you,” Weiss whispered, her leg rubbing along Yang’s.

Yang let out a groan that was equal parts pleasure and exhaustion. “ _Ten minutes_?” she pleaded, still struggling to string words together.

Weiss pinched an earlobe. “ _Five_ ,” she bartered down. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Yang let out a jagged snort. “Of course not, your highness…”

* * *

Vernal’s team moved swiftly. The two men beside her were armed with Fabrique Nationale pistols, accessorized with suppressors, and loaded with hollow-point rounds. Vernal needed only the pistol she’d stripped from Sully, hoodie tucked tight over her head.

Nobody saw them as they entered through the back of the bank, taking a discreet stairwell that lead to the security offices in the basement. The door to enter required a keycard, a thumbprint, and a four-digit PIN code, all of which the shanghaied Sully was more than willing to provide. The double-reinforced door swung open, and then... 

Sully had never seen a massacre before, but he knew at once that that was what unfolded. Vernal’s companions moved ruthlessly, mercilessly, emerald-green laser sights providing pinpoint accuracy for their ammo. The slaughter was over in less than ten seconds, the middle-aged men inside wholly unprepared for a gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Sully fell to his knees, his mind overwhelmed by the carnage in front of him. He distantly processed the sound of Vernal fiddling with her pistol, clicking the safety off. He turned to face her, an expression of betrayal somehow finding its way to his face.

“ _Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last?_ ” Vernal asked. Sully never had time to wonder as to why she’d adopted a horrible German accent. “ _I lied_.”

The gunshot echoed in the room, Sully’s lifeless form falling limply to the linoleum.

One of Vernal’s thugs tilted his head. “Damn, that was kind of fucked up,” he noted, even as the blood of a man he’d murdered pooled by his boots.

Vernal’s grin vanished, replace with a scowl. “Shut up,” she grunted back, giving her would-be john a kick for good measure. “We have work to do.”

* * *

“ _Get up_. It’s almost four.”

Roman Torchwick squinted as the bulbs of his bedroom were viciously alighted, betraying the tangled mess he’d made of the bed.

“Did Robert Downey Junior in the flesh just walk into our club?” he inquired, mouth still in the pillow.

“ _No_ ,” answered Junior, collecting the worst of the sartorial mess Torchwick had made on the floor.

“Then _what_ ,” Roman asked, stretching his bare torso languorously, “in _hell_ are you waking me up for?”

Junior scoffed, tossing the gathered garments into a hamper. “Police chatter, robbery in process. Someone’s hitting Shion National, on Aster and Tataricus.”

“So?” Torchwick had only fallen asleep four hours ago, and his body was sorely lacking in either rest or caffeine. “Are we now fucking crime reporters on the beat?”

Junior shook his head, watching as Roman clambered out of their bed in nothing but orange briefs. “The _masks_ ,” he began, speaking as if to a slow child. “One of my contacts works across the street. He said one of them wasn’t wearing the usual ski mask. One of the robbers had a full-face mask with four eye slits.”

It clicked in Roman’s head. “Why on _Earth_ did you bury the lede like that?” he mockingly reproached, spanking Junior’s ass in punishment. All the Starbucks in Seattle couldn’t have perked him up like that morsel of intel had.

“Be a doll and clear my schedule for tonight, would you? We’re going to have clients to entertain.”

* * *

Raven’s entrance had been slightly less bloody but no less terrifying.

While the family that had founded Shion National Bank had originally been Japanese, arriving on this side of the Pacific at the dawn of the twentieth century, the Bank itself had been built with Germanic traditions which would’ve made any Zürcher proud. It was a two-storey structure reminiscent of a medieval keep, and about as defensible. The walls were made of solid stone, the windows barred and bulletproof. Entering from the front door required crossing a small atrium and ascending two narrow flights of stairs - an architectural chokepoint - while the only other entrances were easily-defended doorways from the back alley and the rooftop.

Raven’s bombs had covered those.

She didn’t have much use for explosives in her day-to-day operations, but they were _extremely_ powerful as a deterrent, she had to concede. Their stolen van had been loaded with a small fertilizer bomb, a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil colloquially called ANFO. It was about as unsophisticated a bomb as one could make, but the _boom_ had made short work of any forensic evidence they might have left in the van, and kept the police a _very_ respectable distance away.

Attacking with the element of surprise, Raven’s men had made quick and bloody work of the security guards, and had fortified and barricaded themselves well-before the first responders had arrived. Her small crew was corralling upwards of thirty civilian hostages, a fact which had been communicated to the police negotiator on the other end of the landline. As had the fact that they had _plenty more_ explosives, connected to tripwires at every point of entry.

Her men had moved with an efficiency that she was begrudgingly proud of. Firearms, cell phones and wallets had all swiftly been confiscated and collected. The entrances had been barred and barricaded, and with the coerced cooperation of the bank manager every till and vault had been opened. Her men had moved neatly-bound stacks of cash into their sacks, before whipping out the power tools and making their way to the safety deposit boxes. Vernal’s team had already found the servers storing the CCTV recordings of their arrival, which had been pulverized into illegibility.

Raven would never say that something was ‘ _too easy_ ’, but so far, the plan had gone off like Swiss clockwork.

“Cop’s on the line again!” César called out, gesturing with the handset of a phone. “Wants to know what we want.”

Raven allowed herself a small smile, strolling over and snatching the plastic piece from his hand. “Good afternoon,” she said in greeting, keeping her voice icy cool. She didn’t give the cop on the other end time to reply. “Our demands are simple. We want a fully-fuelled 777-300ER in the next twelve hours. With a flight crew. We want a release of all the political prisoners held at Tartarus Penitentiary. And I want a face-to-face meeting with the Mayor. Give us what we want, and nobody needs to die.” She slammed the handset down, yanking it from its plug for good measure.

César raised an eyebrow. “A plane and political prisoners?”

Raven shrugged, indifferently. “It’ll keep them guessing,” she explained.

And then she sighed. There was still plenty of time to kill until nightfall.

* * *

“ _Get up_ ,” Cinder Fall angrily demanded, scaring Mercury straight from his seat.

“Uh, what’s up, boss?” Merc asked, as Cinder appropriated his chair before the computer. Though calling it a mere computer was a bit of a disservice: the eight-screen workstation was possibly the single greatest information nexus on the planet. It was a Bloomberg Terminal, it had access to the wire feeds of the AP, AFP, and UPI, it recorded forty separate cable and satellite television channels, and was accessoried with just about every piece of analytical software on the market, and many that weren’t.

Cinder’s fingers strummed over one of the three keyboards, summoning in seconds a live-stream of local news coverage, a transcript of police radio chatter, and three satellite images of the intersection, overlayed with OpenStreetMap data.

“Do you think it’s them?” Emerald asked cautiously, resting one hand on the back of her boss’ chair. “The robber with the girl you’re looking for?”

Cinder tapped a lacquered nail against the glass top table. “I grow tired of guessing,” she growled. “Call the Club.”

* * *

Qrow glanced up at the television, which had been playing the same thirty-seconds of footage for the better part of an hour now. A bank robbery and a hostage crisis, right in the heart of downtown. That was pretty ballsy, he had to admit, the kind of heist that _could_ be genius, but was more likely desperation or idiocy.

He returned to his whiskey, which - now that the kitchen was open - had been paired with that Québécois delicacy that was poutine. Fries, gravy and cheese curds. How it hadn’t caught on here remained a mystery to the PI.

Qrow’s phone buzzed, and it took him a second to unlock it, the fine characters fuzzing in his head awash with ethanol.

_Keep watching. - Wizard._

Qrow let out a sigh. The heady scent of gravy had lost its appetizing appeal.

* * *

“Get up, Wonder Woman,” Weiss instructed, staring over the shoulder of her reflection as she hurriedly pulled snow-white hairs into an off-centered ponytail. “We got a call from Ozpin.”

“ _Can’t_ ,” Yang declared, sprawled spread-eagle across their queen-sized bed. “Your tongue is my kryptonite.”

Weiss frowned. “Kryptonite is Superman's weakness,” she corrected, fastening the clasp of a necklace.

“Ah- _hah_!” Yang sprung up on the bed, pumping fists in the air like the Habs had just scored in OT. “I _knew_ you were a geek.”

The reflection in the bedroom vanity rolled its eyes. “ _Hardly_ ,” Weiss corrected, slipping an earring through her piercing. “But just because I have patrician tastes does not make me _ignorant_ of your plebeian ones.”

Yang snorted, reclining triumphantly into the headboard. “My _point_ ,” she stated, the puff of air that accompanied the _p_ blowing the blonde hairs in her face, “is that I’m _pretty_ sure I can return the favor.” Flaxen eyebrows wiggled suggestively. “Show you what I can do with my Lasso of Truth…”

Weiss groaned, sliding open the mirrored door of their closet. Yang’s supple form rolled laterally out of view. “Isn’t it enough that we’re basically _real-life_ superheroes? Why do you have to bring it into the bedroom?”

“Uh, _obviously_ because I’m not allowed to wear a cape and unitard to work,” Yang answered glibly, staring at the posterior of her paramour, who was rifling through the closet’s lower shelves. “Last chance, Weiss. What’s so special you have to miss the gun show?”

When Weiss turned around, she saw her girlfriend flexing bulging biceps, both the synthetic and organic ones. She sighed.

“I don’t know, Yang, maybe just _our job_?” She tossed something towards her lover.

The sawed-off shotgun landed on the mattress with faint _thump_.

* * *

“ _My, my_ , I hope someone checked your IDs on the way in,” Roman said by way of greeting, theatrically sweeping aside the velvet curtains that veiled the Club’s private booths. The woman on the other end of the tabe didn’t rise to greet him, her gaze sweeping him up and down like the Eye atop Barad-dûr. “Roman Torchwick, at your service.”

He offered a theatrical bow, before slipping onto the booth’s bench. The seating was generous, particularly in a venue where real estate was at such a premium, but Torchwick knew the value of pampering his VIPs. Across from him sat Cinder Fall, sipping leisurely at one of the Club’s colorful cocktails. Junior had prepared it himself, for among his _many_ hats was ‘ _bartender par excellence_ ’, as Roman had the pleasure of experiencing. Cinder’s two associates - Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai, he knew without asking - were seated a comfortable spacing apart, looking _bored_ and _discomforted_ , respectively.

Cinder set her glass down. While they were far enough removed that the music was no longer deafening, the noise still drowned out all but concerted speech. The best bug in the world couldn’t have eavesdropped on their conversation. “You are following the robbery at Shion National?”

Roman assumed what an otaku would call “The Gendo Pose”, interlocking his fingers in front of his mouth, back hunched. “I follow everything,” he answered, which was only a bit of an exaggeration. “Question is: what do you want, and how badly do you want it?”

Cinder smirked, reclining in her plush leather seat, glass in hand. “Do you know who the robbers are?” she asked, her tone betraying neither desperation nor nervousness.

Roman raised an eyebrow. “We have a pretty good idea. Five men and two women, professionals, and the police haven’t ID’d them yet.” Cinder Fall’s face was perfectly neutral, but her companions couldn’t keep the surprise from theirs.

 _Mistake bringing the kids with you, lady,_ Torchwick mused to himself. _Though they make an_ excellent _reaction board._

“They seem like the kind of trash who’d enjoy your club,” said Mercury, speaking snarkily and without invitation. “You know ‘em?”

Roman rolled his eyes melodramatically. The kid was trying to bait him into revealing more - that much was _so_ obvious - but he decided to humor him anyways. “ _First_ : this isn’t actually _my_ club, Black, it’s my boyfriend’s.” Roman watched Mercury carefully, relishing the flash of uncomfortableness that the mention of male love had elicited. “ _Second_ : no, idiot. You think I’d associated with that kind of a liability?”

Mercury sunk bank in his seat, rebuked, just as Cinder leaned forward. “I want to know who the women are,” she said, finishing the last of her glass. Her crimson-red lipstick had left a sirenic imprint along its lip.

“Perfectly understandable,” Roman said, reaching into his jacket and withdrawing a business card and a ballpoint pen. “I’m sure you understand that there are certain expenses involved, fees to be covered, and all that.” He scribbled a number on the blank back of the card, then slid it across the table. “That’s for expedited delivery, of course.”

Cinder didn’t glance at the card, though she leaned further forward, eagerness in her posture like a bloodhound with a scent. “And I want to know where to find them. Their bases of operations. Their _modus operandi_.”

Roman blinked for a second, luscious lashes betraying a bit of surprise. “ _No problemo_ , miss. Competitive intelligence is right up our alley, and I’ll have them doxxed in no time.” He clawed back his business card, affixing a couple of zeroes to the end. “Of course, I don’t need to explain to you that there is a certain element of _risk_ involved in inquiring about these sort of people...”

Cinder picked up the card, glancing at the numbers for a briefest of seconds, before passing it off to Emerald with two lithe fingers.

“Now, we’re very flexible with our payment plans,” Roman began. “If you’d prefer to do this in installments, or a net-30…”

His phone chimed, a noise from his banking app informing him that new funds were available. His brow furrowed, and he tapped open his account information.

“ _Half now_ ,” Cinder began, rising to her feet. “Half once we’ve confirmed your information. I trust that that arrangement is agreeable, Roman?”

“Uhh… yeah,” he agreed, slightly subdued. He’d expected them to be good for the money, or else he wouldn’t have bothered with the meeting, but even mafia dons typically wavered before committing so much cash at once. “EOD Friday?”

Cinder nodded. “I’m _certain_ that you won’t fail me, Roman.”

* * *

“ _Raven, tri munud_ ,” Vernal said, slipping into the ancestral Welsh of the Branwens when speaking in front of a hostage, even if the tongue wasn’t exactly worlds apart from English.

Raven nodded, the gesture exaggerated somewhat by the breadth of her mask. They had made their way to the second floor of the bank, where everyone but the tellers worked, in generic cubicles and soulless offices. Several sacks of money sat neatly-piled by the stairwell to the rooftop exit, next to a tripwire securing the exit.

The sun had set an hour ago, the blue-and-red klaxons of police lights flickering eerily through the bank’s narrow windows. Raven had her own men and women outside, dressed as civilian bystanders, quietly communicating the movements and positioning of the police through concealed radios.

Raven had no delusions that there was a Boeing aircraft sitting on the tarmac and waiting for her to make an escape, though she’d managed to keep the police preoccupied for now. The cops were probably waiting for fatigue to set in, gearing up to raid the bank in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, when human beings were at their most exhausted.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an _easy_ assault, which was probably contributing to their hamletian procrastination. The bomb Raven had left in her van had communicated her ability to use explosives, and she’d informed the police negotiator that every room was rigged with similar charges. That wasn’t entirely true - only _some_ of them were - but no police officer in the world relished the challenge of a hostage crisis in a building filled with ANFO.

“ _Sixty eiliad_.”

* * *

The helicopter was, in itself, unremarkable. A twin-engine Bell 206 utility helicopter, modified slightly for extended range. It was not armed or armored, and could easily have been mistaken for a news chopper at a distance. Only up-close did the differences become apparent - the matte black paint coating its every surface, the absence of a tail number or safety lights...

The helicopter had taken off from an unused industrial park on the city outskirts, no transponder declaring its identity, hugging the ground in what was known as _nap-of-the-earth_ flying. It was too low to be picked up by the radar of the nearby international airport, the pilot dexterously maneuvering the throttle as they weaved between apartment buildings and above power lines.

While the helicopter lacked any kind of a legal registration number, it nevertheless had acquired a name, at least an informal one amongst its crew. It was not a particularly clever name, but it’d fit, so it stuck.

The pilot of the HMS _Nevermore_ keyed open a radio link.

* * *

Raven picked up a phone, one of the ones which served as a dedicated hot-line to the police negotiator. “Are you listening?”

“ _Yes_ ,” replied the negotiator on the other side, a man with two PhDs in psychology and a dozen crises under his belt. He was sipping a cup of extremely cold coffee.

“In a few minutes, a black helicopter is going to land on the bank. My associates and several hostages will board that helicopter. If any of your men interfere with it, or if they attempt to follow it, I will detonate the bombs.”

“ _Ma’am_ , I just want to make sure everyone leaves safely, so-”

“I’d rather die than go back to prison. Don’t forget that. Interference means _everyone_ dies.”

She slammed the handset down for the last time, taking in Vernal’s amused expression. Raven Branwen, as Vernal well-knew, had never spent a day in a cell, though the police would no doubt waste hundreds of hours pouring through criminal records, trying to find a woman who wasn’t in them.

Vernal would have commented on Raven’s bit of misdirection, but there was still one hostage within earshot, and there was no sense in correcting their lie before him. He was the branch manager, a sixty-something man who’d never lived a day like this before. His hands were bound behind his back with duct tape - not like either woman was particularly worried about his martial prowess - and he’d been _extremely_ helpful in making sure the robbers hadn’t overlooked anything. He was also slated to be their insurance for the flight out.

The sound of helicopter blades _whirring_ was audible even inside the bank, heralding the arrival of their exit. Two of Raven’s men jogged up the stairs to meet her. One of them had a handheld radio in his grip, the brick sending and receiving encrypted messages to the pilot on the other end of the line.

“ _Nevermore_ , this is Bandit-4,” César said, clicking the link to life. “We are good to exfil.”

“ _Gotcha_ ,” the pilot acknowledged. “ _And tell Vernal I heard about her_ Commando _joke, and that’s dark, even for her.”_

César hurried to close the channel, but the expression on his face confirmed the damage that had already been done. Two of the robbers had glanced at the woman in the hoodie as soon as the word _Vernal_ had been spoken, and the recognition on the manager’s face suggested he’d put two and two together.

There was a distant _thud_ from the roof, as the two-ton bird settled on the gravel beside the AC units.

“ _César_ ,” Raven growled. “Go collect the rest. And grab another hostage for the ride.”

César swallowed, but didn’t dare disagree, vanishing back down the stairwell (with his fellow robber tactfully following suit).

Raven and Vernal were left alone with the bank manager.

Raven turned her inhuman face to the man, the four eyes of the mask causing him to quail. “You know her name,” Raven stated. It wasn’t really a question.

“I-I-I-I I don’t know,” the man stuttered, knees buckling. “I might have misheard it. _Vert_ , something? _Aural_?” He sank to his knees.

Vernal folded her arms, watching as Raven unsheathed her katana, the drawing of the sword producing a sonorous metal sound.

“You don’t understand,” Raven explained, almost sympathetically, the blade cutting through the air with a _swish_ as she flicked her wrist. “But I have to keep that woman safe. Keep her secret.”

Vernal felt something warm in her heart as Raven repeated her guarantee of sanctuary. The manager felt a blade resting on the collar of his shirt.

“I won’t tell another soul, I _swear_ ,” he pleaded, tears brimming in his eyes. “I know you’ll kill me if I do. You can hunt me down if the police find out. I know you can!”

The remaining robbers returned with another hostage, one of the tellers, bound, gagged and blindfolded with black tape. They all froze, taking in the theater before them.

“I look after my tribe,” Raven said, her tone suggesting the explanation was coming to its conclusion. She pulled back her katana.

“ _Why must you, why do I…._?” The desperate sobs of a man knowing his life is over.

“The weak die. The strong live.”

Raven’s stance was borrowed from iaidō, a sword-centric martial art that emphasized swift and decisive blows.

“Those are the rules.”

She gave him a clean death, which was the most he could have hoped for.

* * *

In a downtown studio, Lisa Lavender prepared for the top of the hour. A woman from makeup hurried to apply finishing touches to her camera-friendly cosmetology, while the anchorwoman herself reviewed a few printed notes in front of her. Like everyone else in the office, she’d been following the developments at Shion as they’d happened, but she skimmed her bullet-pointed summary to better-organize her narrative’s outline.

“Twenty seconds!” someone called out from in front of her. The makeup artist exited camera right, while Lavender slipped her notes under the table, clasping her hands atop the obsidian desk, posture immaculate. Lights brightened and the studio quieted, gargantuan cameras sliding along tracks into first positions.

“In five, four, three…” _Two… one…_

A red light blinked On.

_“Good evening. I’m Lisa Lavender, and this is your eight o’clock news.”_

* * *

_“- an hours-long hostage crisis at Shion National Bank ended minutes ago, with the robbers making a daring escape by helicopter.”_

Roman Torchwick glanced at the television, nursing for a second a rather lecherous fantasy about the anchorman reading the news. Smart suits and crisp enunciation... 

With a shake of his head he returned to his work, which at this stage was mostly firing off texts, or emailing ne'er-do-wells via a ProtonMail account and a Tor connection.

These sort of heists didn’t come out of nowhere, he knew (from experience). You had to talk to people. Ask questions. Obtain equipment and intel. All that planning and scheming left a trace, one more visible from the underground than above. Dealers, fences, gun-runners, forgers. And if there was one thing all those scum and villains had in common, it was a working relationship with Roman Torchwick.

It was going to be a late night. Roman kicked off his shoes, hunching over his laptop as he did.

He startled slightly as Junior set a glass down on the desk beside him, complete with a drink coaster designed to look like Mediterranean imbrex tiles.

“Ooh, a Moloko Plus,” Roman swooned, sweeping the beverage up. “You shouldn’t have.”

Junior chuckled a little, his hands moving to Roman’s shoulders, massaging out the worst of the kinks. “You’ve got a long night ahead?”

“ _Yup_ ,” Roman admitted with a sigh, setting the drink down. “Don’t stay up for me.”

Junior nodded begrudgingly. He was about to step away when Roman leaned backwards over the chair, grabbing the sliver of necktie that poked through Hei’s vest. With a swift _tug_ the two were brought together, for a pleasant if ungainly kiss.

“Wake me up for breakfast,” Roman instructed. Then he returned to his laptop. “If I’m not still doing this shit…”

* * *

“ _The robbery began at approximately three o’clock this afternoon. Authorities have confirmed at least eight individuals appear to have been killed during the robbery, though it is still unknown if that numbers includes any of the suspected perpetrators.”_

“I would be _very_ surprised if it did,” mused Cinder, stepping out of the hotel’s bathroom in a black silk robe. Mercury’s gaze didn’t drift from the evening news, though Emerald’s eyes certainly lingered, the Nintendo 3DS she’d lifted suddenly forgotten in her hands.

“How much you think they got away with?” Mercury asked, wiping Cheetos-stained fingertips on his pants.

“Hard to say,” Cinder answered, indifferently. She pulled out a phone and began tapping idly away at it. “That was Shion National’s downtown branch, so likely well-above average.”

“Just seems like a lot of work for a couple of hundred _thou_ ,” Mercury said with a shrug.

“If that’s all you were after…” Cinder murmured, unheard but by herself.

* * *

“ _The robbers reportedly used explosive devices to barricade the bank, preventing the police from responding. While the hostages have been safely evacuated, a bomb disposal team is reportedly still clearing the bank.”_

Yang’s eyes flickered to the coffee shop’s television, where B-roll footage showed a small, tracked bomb disposal robot being guided into the bank. In a nearby truck the viewer could make out a handful of men being fitted into colossal bomb suits, like shock-absorbant cosmonauts.

“ _Police have released footage of the lead bandit, a woman known as “The Raven”, who is currently on the list of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives_.”

The screen changed, showing that same, god-awful mask that Yang had learned to hate like nothing else in life. She swallowed, preparing to storm angrily out, when she felt Weiss’ hands rest on her bicep.

“Hey,” Weiss whispered softly, her hands giving a reassuring _squeeze_ of toned muscle. “I’m here for you.”

Yang’s smile was forced, but she felt her breaths being calmed by Weiss’ touch, love in tactile form. “I’m fine,” she promised, exhaling loudly as she did. And then she reached for her phone. “Just have to make a call.”

* * *

“ _The individual identified as Raven is charged with being the head of a transnational criminal organizations known as the Bandits. The reward for information leading to her arrest and conviction is currently at $2 million.”_

“Yeah?” Qrow asked, answering his phone without checking the caller ID.

“ _Hey, Uncle Qrow_ ,” came Yang’s voice on the other end, sounding weary and resigned. “You see the news?”

Qrow took a drink. “Hard not to,” he answered, feeling something warble in his stomach.

“Looks like Mom’s back in town.”

 _There it was_.

“Looks like.”

* * *

The _Nevermore_ landed a little less than an hour later. True to their word the police hadn’t followed them, though Raven had little doubt that they were being tracked. But they’d crossed jurisdictions during the flight, and tracking a black helicopter on a moonless night over rugged terrain was still not an easy endeavour.

They’d set the helicopter down on the outskirts of a small ski town, a place filled with hills and woods and a million unmapped roads. Their landing pad was a villa that was still under construction, towards the end of a development project a few minute’s drive from the slopes.

They moved quickly. Raven and her robbers began unloading the fruits of their labors, the contents divided into duffels and tossed into the trunks of waiting cars. Their remaining hostage was loaded into one such trunk, to be deposited somewhere closer to civilization. Raven Branwen was a killer, by her own admission, but it did her reputation no favors to break her word, and that hostage’s safety had been promised.

Dispersing goods and personnel was easy. Concealing the _Nevermore_ was not. She had no Batcave, no secret lair worth the name. But she was ingenious, and she was resourceful, and that went a long way.

As soon as the blades had stopped spinning, her men had begun disassembling them, separating the rotors from the body of the helicopter. It was complicated work, but they’d practised incessantly, in every condition, and could move faster than a team of trained airmen.

Within minutes the blades of the helicopter were off, reducing its size dramatically. From there, it was a quick bit of maneuvering to roll the helicopter into an intermodal container, a big blue box still stamped with the ubiquitous MAERSK logo. It was an exceptionally tight fit, and more than a few flecks of paint were lost in the process, but the bird fit, however barely.

Once the _Nevermore_ was safely sequestered, one of Raven’s bandits hopped into the cabin of a truck, keying the ignition. Construction was a constant in this underdeveloped neck of the woods, and nobody had glanced twice at the eighteen-wheeler as it pulled into the lot. Nobody had glanced twice as it drove off, either, hauling the getaway aircraft right past the police.

Raven and her remaining crew dispersed into a dozen idling vehicles. They had a police radio, which Raven was monitoring for chatter, but also a handful of sentries stationed around the town. In a rural community like this there were only so many ways the police could come and go, and that made monitoring their movements child’s play. Her men were already placing anonymous tips from distant pay-phones, rerouting police resources to wild-goose chases.

Raven reclined her seat, safely inside a big black pickup, eyes drifting shut. Vernal had cranked the heat to the point of stifling, and the adrenaline was flushing from her veins.

Vernal herself smiled, fingers strumming the wheel through fingerless gloves. She relished the satisfaction of a job well-done, the ebullience of a clean escape. They still had a long drive ahead of them, but she wasn’t tired in the slightest.

“ _Raven_ ,” she said, breaking the silence. “Check the glove compartment.”

Raven raised an eyebrow but complied, letting out a small snort as a bottle of French red rolled out, caught just above the floorboards.

“To celebrate another triumph for the Tribe,” Vernal explained, as Raven eyed the label. The younger woman reached into her pocket, proffering the corkscrew of her Swiss Army knife.

Raven reached across the divide, grabbing Vernal’s head and tugging it towards her. Vernal let out a giggle despite herself, barely managing to keep her eyes on the road. Raven pressed a short kiss to Vernal’s brow, before allowing the driver to straighten up.

“You did well today,” she said, twisting the corkscrew into the neck of the bottle. “Though this is far from over.”

“Of course,” Vernal replied, just a little too quickly. The cork was loosened with a _pop_ , Raven taking a decadent gulp from the bottle. “And I’m ready for it.”

“I know,” Raven agreed, licking the Languedoc from her lips. “But tonight,” she handed Vernal the bottle, the younger woman palming it easily. “We celebrate.”

* * *

“ _The Mayor has put out a statement asking for anyone with information to contact the police, using the anonymous tip line displayed below. Criticism of the authorities’ inability to locate the Raven has lead to calls for -”_

The television clicked off, Lisa Lavender’s face vanishing into a black mirror.

“Well now,” declared Ozpin, swivelling around in a high-backed chair. Ageless eyes peered through green-tinted spectacles, taking in the informal assembly.

“It seems we have our work cut out for us.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So have at it. This is kind of an open concert Modern/Crime AU I've had in my head for a bit. If you like it, I might try to write more. I really _want_ to write an ongoing, multi-chaptered fic, but so far that has been beyond my powers. I'm generally happy with the characterizations for Cinder, Roman and Raven/Vernal, everyone else is a bit more tentative. As such, while feedback and reviews are always appreciated, they are _especially_ appreciated on this fic. Positive, negative, [neutral](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ). Feedback is really the only way I'll ever improve. Snippets from an earlier draft are archived [here](http://pvoberstein.tumblr.com/post/168377172653/snippets-from-a-dissatisfying-writing-session). And as always, feel free to contact me on [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/) or [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/).
> 
> So now for the random writer's notes. I tried getting a little fancy by synchronizing the time across all the different POVs on two different occasions (with the **_now_** at the beginning, and with Lavender's broadcast at the end). I hope that worked as a reasonably-tidy way of threading the narratives back together. There were far more POVs than I usually like to deal with, so I hope nobody felt lost or that the plot was meandering. If so, please advise. I am operating under the tentative belief that Raven's worldview can best be surmised as Neutral Evil. (Agree / disagree?)
> 
> Other Random Notes: I reviewed the _Monty Python_ [Cheese Shop sketch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0) to pick the cheese. Raven's helicopter was nicknamed _Nevermore_ in reference to [the poem by Poe](https://www.eapoe.org/works/poems/ravena.htm), and it wasn't until I'd finished writing that I'd remembered that they were also [a Grimm from _RWBY_](http://rwby.wikia.com/wiki/Nevermore).
> 
> And remember: a single sentence can brighten my day, a thoughtful review keeps me sane for a month!


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